Quick Answer: Most PPC Waste Comes From Four Specific Categories
Roughly 70% of SEM budget inefficiency comes from: (1) Broad match keywords with zero commercial intent, (2) Landing page friction that kills conversion rates, (3) Bid strategy misalignment, and (4) Geographic targeting including areas where you have no capacity.
A systematic audit typically identifies $5,000-20,000 in monthly wasted spend per account.
The Four-Layer SEM Audit Framework
Layer 1: Keyword-Level Performance
Export your keyword list. Calculate Cost Per Conversion for each. Identify keywords with conversion costs exceeding your target CPA by 50%+. Pause zero-conversion keywords (30-40% of most accounts) that have been running for 6+ months.
Layer 2: Account Structure Review
Good structure: separate campaigns for branded keywords, commercial keywords, informational keywords, and geographic areas. Poor structure: one massive campaign with 500+ keywords.
Layer 3: Landing Page Friction Assessment
Audit top 10-20 performing keywords. Where do they land? Do pages load in under 3 seconds? Are CTAs above the fold? Moving traffic to keyword-specific landing pages improves conversion 20-40%.
Layer 4: Bid Strategy & Geographic Targeting
Are you using manual bidding where target CPA would work better? Are you bidding on areas where you have no delivery capacity? Common waste: paying $15/click on branded searches you'd win at $8/click.
Typical Audit Findings for $10,000/Month Accounts
20-30% of keywords generate 80% of conversions. The other 70% is noise. Broad match keywords generate 40% of impressions but only 15% of conversions. Generic homepage landing pages convert at 1-2%; keyword-specific pages convert at 4-6%. 10-15% of spend is geographic waste.
Total recoverable waste: $2,000-3,500/month (20-35% of budget) through reallocation and optimization, without cutting traffic.
Tom Lawreszuk - Vandesign.ca project manager
